Samoa to offset SIDS carbon emissions

Transcript

Samoa is encouraging people to plant trees, compost and mulch to help offset carbon emissions caused by the Small Islands Developing States conference being held there in a month.

The Offset Islands campaign has been launched to counter carbon generated from SIDS, which will attract more than 3,000 people to Apia.

It is being led by the Women in Business Development executive director, Adimaimalaga Tafuna'i and the Samoa Observer newspaper, which will feature 30-days of carbon offsetting news, advice and campaign updates.

Tafuna'i spoke to Mary Baines about the campaign.

ADIMAIMALAGA TAFUNA'I: There's going to be over 3,000 people coming to this UN Small Islands Developing States conference. And with all the travel, all the food we are going to be importing to feed them, it's going to be lots and lots of carbon emissions happening. And with the issues in the Pacific that attributed to all the carbon emissions, you know, climate change and the things that are happening now, we thought that as a small island country we need to be doing something ourselves towards offsetting these emissions. We are going out and asking the larger countries to do their bit, but we just felt it was important that we do something as well.

MARY BAINES: So you're encouraging people to plant trees and compost and things like that, to play their part?

AT: Yes, compost and mulch and stop burning and things like that, yes.

MB: How much carbon do you expect will be produced by the conference?

AT: We don't even know that yet. We have been talking to people who have the expertise in these things. And so, the South Pacific Regional Environmental Protection Agency, we're speaking to them about it, and our own Ministry for Natural Resources and the Environment are going to help us with all the calculations so that at the end of all this we should have some kind of an idea of just how much carbon was created and how much we managed to offset it.

MB: And you'll have an online campaign, I understand, where people can upload their activities, put up photos of trees they have planted and things like that?

AT: Yes, absolutely. And we're trying to get people from other small island states to join us, from the Caribbean, you know, just from around the world. Especially the people who are coming for the conference, we'd like them to join us as well. And even though we have just started, people have started to respond, so we're quite excited about that.

MB: And the government has put in some other measures to keep the conference green?

AT: Yes, yes. The government is setting up solar power. We've got the environmental agency and SPREP looking at how all the rubbish is going to be managed, we're even looking at how we're going to compost all the green waste that comes out of the conference. So all that we hope will be able to contribute to this as well.